A Year with Rilke: Welcome to A Year with Rilke

December 22, 2010

Welcome to A Year with Rilke

Sketch of Rilke, by Leonid Osipovic Pasternak

Daily posts will begin January 1, 2011. We hope you will enjoy Rilke's words with us.

9 comments:

California GirlFri Dec 31, 02:26:00 AM GMT+1
I'm ready!!!
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Dan GurneyFri Dec 31, 03:06:00 AM GMT+1
First Rumi, now Rilke--great! Thanks, Ruth, it's wonderful.
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PatriciaFri Dec 31, 03:45:00 AM GMT+1
Count me in...this is one new year's resolution I hope to follow!
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CharFri Dec 31, 04:08:00 AM GMT+1
i'm so excited for this
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Lorenzo — Alchemist's PillowFri Dec 31, 11:59:00 AM GMT+1
It is beautiful to see people signing up to follow and commenting already. I am looking forward to working on this blog with Ruth and offering it to so many blog friends
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RuthFri Dec 31, 01:25:00 PM GMT+1
Yes. Welcome, dear friends! I am excited to share Rilke together with you in these coming days.
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ElisabethSat Jan 01, 01:07:00 AM GMT+1
Looking forward to it, Ruth. Hooray for Rilke.
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*Mon Jan 03, 06:25:00 AM GMT+1
Yes, yes, and si senor!!
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A Brush with ColorMon Jan 03, 08:40:00 AM GMT+1
Beautiful art and poetry and words to savour--what more could we want! I love this, and I'm adding your blog to my blogroll right now to remind me to check in often! Happy New Year!
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"Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night."

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Go ahead, bloom recklessly!

About the Blog

We, Lorenzo and Ruth, are blog friends who, upon discovering our shared admiration for Rainer Maria Rilke's writings in a new volume of daily readings, decided to launch this blog.

Lorenzo (in Spain) has a home blog called The Alchemist's Pillow. Ruth (in the U.S.) has a home blog called synch-ro-ni-zing. Both of us also write poems and receive inspiration from Mary Oliver, Rumi, and many other poets.

We hope you will be inspired by this site, and we'd love to hear your responses in comments.

The Challenge of Translation

How can a poem written by Rilke, or anyone, be translated into another language, when a poem by its nature is a snapshot of a feeling, idea or story that also sings in lyricism, cadence, rhyme (sometimes) and other nuances that contribute to the poem intrinsically?

C. John Holcombe has thoroughly and generously explored the "problems" of translation in an article linked here, in which he explores the poem Herbsttag by Rilke. You can read fourteen versions of the first stanza by different translators, as well as a revelation of the issues of translation: word choice when there is no perfect equivalent; diction; word order (maintain the original or rearrange for effect?); rhyme; balance; and looking at the context of the poet's previous work.